South Florida Built 25% More Condos In 1970s Than During 2000s Boom

In this episode of Condo Capitalism™, Peter Zalewski discusses the history of condo development in the tricounty region and why it matters for rating the financial health of aging buildings today.Condo Capitalism™ is a weekly podcast hosted by Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Investing Club™ that provides data-driven analysis on distressed real estate—foreclosures, shortsales and bank-owned REOs—in the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.The program tracks the Florida Condo Association Financial Cliff, where rising maintenance fees, special assessments and insurance costs are squeezing cash-strapped owners.On the show, experts analyze how the national “two-sided risk”—rising inflation and falling employment—magnifies these local pressures, potentially forcing a capitulation by owners who can no longer afford condo living.Join Peter Zalewski at MiamiCondo.Club for a livestream every weekday at 4 pm (Miami time). On-demand recordings of all shows are available here.Episode OverviewIn the May 21, 2026, episode of the Condo Capitalism™ podcast, host Peter Zalewski traces the origins of condo development across the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.The research is part of the buildout of a Condo Ratings Agency™ that will use government data to grade the financial stability of individual condo associations.The agency will give buyers, sellers, lenders and regulators an objective measure of a building's condition beyond its physical appearance.To build it, Zalewski went back to the beginning—the creation of the Florida Condo Law in 1963—and reconstructed a county-by-county record of every active association and unit built since.State of Florida records show that nearly 13,000 condo associations encompassing more than 760,000 units have been built across the tricounty area during the past six decades, with 67% of those properties now classified as Vintage, meaning they are at least 30 years old and subject to mandatory structural inspections and potentially large special assessments.Broward County dominated condo construction through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, while Miami-Dade County emerged as the regional leader beginning in the 1990s and accelerated sharply in the 2000s, adding more than 113,000 of the roughly 195,000 units built that decade across the tricounty area.As part of the 2026 Summer Buying Season, the podcast summary has been eliminated.Click play above to watch Zalewski’s analysis, and use the timestamped timeline and the Top 10 Takeaways below to navigate the program on demand.